Police clash with youth in Cairo after anti-Mursi protest

CAIRO, May 17 (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces clashed with young men in central Cairo after a protest by several thousand opponents of President Mohamed Mursi, state news agency MENA reported.

The forces fired tear gas at the youths throwing firebombs and stones at them. Police arrested a number of men, MENA reported.

The Friday protest billed as a major demonstration against Mursi drew only a few thousand people, signalling how momentum for protests that erupted around the second anniversary of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak has steadily evaporated.

Members of "rebellion," an anti-Mursi campaign launched this month, gathered signatures at the demonstration for a petition calling for Mursi's removal and early elections.

Organizers said they have collected 2 million signatures.

Mursi presides over a deeply polarized political landscape and a public suffering from the economic impacts of two years of political turmoil since the 2011 uprising. (Reporting By Maggie Fick and Ahmed Tolba; Additonal reporting by Shaimaa Fayed; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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